History has shown us that the best guides to what will happen in the future, are the events of the past and the present. History has also shown us that nothing in this mortal world is without an alternative. Heeding these lessons is common sense.

Many great thinkers, including the renowned philosopher, novelist and poet George Santayana, have repeatedly warned us that those who ignore the lessons of history do so at great personal peril. Indeed, Santayana in his seminal work,
The Life of Reason, famously admonished: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

I agree.

In Jamaica there have been some awful events that have left near catastrophic emotional, social, and financial scars on us. We must never forget the instigators of these horrific events. Similarly, we must never forget especially the chief lieutenants who sinisterly wholesaled and retailed the bad medicines of their terrible architects of hardships and immeasurable sufferings, which have left many Jamaicans physically, emotionally and socially incapacitated. We best protect ourselves against these horrible types by heeding history’s warnings.

Don’t let them fool you

Our 19th general election is due 15 months from today. A very crucial question all well-thinking Jamaicans need to ask themselves is: What would be the likely consequences for Jamaica if the People’s National Party (PNP) were returned to Jamaica House?

We can only credibly answer this question based on the performance, or lack thereof, of past PNP administrations and the present trajectory of the Mark Golding-led PNP.

One does not need to be a political historian with a specialty in local politics, a clairvoyant, a political Einstein, and/or a futurist to arrive at a valid answer to the mentioned question.

Except maybe for Martians; those incapacitated by advanced voluntary political amnesia; intellectually degenerate-types who celebrated French Philosopher Julien Benda in his pioneering work,
The Treason of the Intellectuals, castigates because they sacrifice facts on the altar of careerism; those trapped in ideological stupors; and/or technological Luddites who stoutly resist the near ubiquity of the Internet, it should be relatively easy for the rest of us to figure and forecast the likely consequences of a return of the PNP to Jamaica House.

Nobel Laureate William Faulkner, who won the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, opined that: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

It has not escaped my notice that, especially in recent times, some, for reasons which should be obvious except maybe to those who have their heads buried deep in the proverbial sand, cry out vociferously whenever a facts-based discussion of the stewardship of past PNP administrations is put into the public square.

“We are dealing with a different generation now, they don’t need to hear all that,” some snarl and snap.

“Cho, man, please stop digging up the past,” others formulaically and conveniently wail.

“Don’t let them fool you,” as Bob Marley, reggae legend, sang.

We who mean this country well must not succumb to their crocodile tears, and flippant attitudes towards the horrendous sufferings which have needlessly been visited upon Jamaicans because of the inestimable incompetence of PNP administrations.

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” the saying goes. The significance of this adage must not be ignored when we make choices, whether political, social, emotional, or any other. Those decisions can, more often than not, decide the quality of our lives and those of our children, sometimes for generations.

In the 1970s, Michael Manley and the PNP promised ‘better must come’. When Manley took charge of the Jamaican economy in 1972 we had achieved growth of nearly 12 per cent in 1971. By the time Manley was booted from office, on October 30, 1980, in a landslide defeat by Edward Seaga and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Jamaica was on her knees.

Recall our foreign reserves were in the red. Jamaica owed money to countries as far away as the Middle East. Unemployment and inflation were galloping. Crime was rampant. Social decadence was mushrooming. The streets were dirty. Our major democratic institutions were starved of funding and in tatters — and I am being euphemistic here. All major foreign exchange earners were in coma. Foreign exchange was desperately in short supply. The black market in dollars was king. Jamaica was much more divided, socially and economically, than when Manley took office. Local entrepreneurship was wobbly. And, what Seaga termed “shortages, outages and stoppages” were the order of the day.

When Manley left Jamaica House the country was in economic shambles. This is an incontrovertible fact. We are still recovering from the cruel experiment of Manley’s brand of democratic socialism.

It is true that Manley spearheaded important legislations which helped to rip apart some of the heavy-duty concrete of social snobbery and classism which were especially rampant in the 1960s. It is also true that Manley championed several crucial social programmes which initially delivered increased opportunities to many in our majority black population. Notwithstanding external interference, and two damaging oil crises, Manley massively mishandled the economy — the means of paying for his worthwhile social incentives.

Jamaica has been saluted locally, regionally, and internationally for her adroit economic management during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Jamaica was able to realise this critical achievement primarily because we had stored up corn and barley in the barns (biblical allusion to Joseph’s foresight which saved the Egyptian economy during a debilitating famine) for the lean years. This did not happen under Manley. Instead, the PNP went on a massive spending spree and vast numbers of Jamaicans were tricked into believing that the Government was responsible for them from the cradle to the grave.

We are still dealing with the awful consequences of this tragic error. Manley’s socialism effectively put the freeness mentality on steroids in the 70s.

Socialism has not succeeded anywhere in the world. It never will. Socialism is fuelled by dependency.

Unsurprisingly, the debilitating “we ah sufferah” hanging noose was romanticised during the 70s. Manley’s socialism was Kamikaze-type economics. It relied on tomfoolery and redistribution in the absence of prior production.

A gigantic collapse

Notwithstanding the massive damage of Gilbert, one of the most powerful hurricanes of the 20th century, which landed on our shores on September 12, 1988, Jamaica was opened for business by early November 1988. Jamaica’s recovery was hailed as miraculous, locally and internationally. There was a mood of widespread optimism in the country. Why? Among other things, there was the rapid return of basic services, such as electricity, water, reopening of roads and schools in most parts of the country, quick commencement of repairs to critical infrastructure islandwide, and timely deployment of social assistance to hundreds of affected Jamaicans.

Many months before Troy Caine, political historian extraordinaire, died, I had a long discussion with him about the reasons for the defeat of the JLP in February 1989. Among other things, Caine told me that Seaga was advised to call the general election in late November or very early December of 1988. “The calling of an election has a lot to do with people’s mood at particular point in time,” Caine told me. Anyways that discussion is for another column.

Michael Manley won the February 1989 general election. Manley inherited an economy largely in the black. By 1991 Jamaica’s economy nosedived, as evidenced in these figures from the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ): 1989 (7.0 per cent); 1990 (6.3 per cent) — 1990 was a momentum year as a consequence of the work of the JLP); 1991 (0.5 per cent); 1992 (2.7 per cent).

Another big blot on Manley’s second term was a precedent-setting increase in murders. These are official Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) figures: 1980 (889); 1981 (490); 1982 (405); 1983 (424); 1984 (484); 1985 (434); 1986 (449); 1987 (442); 1988 (414); 1989 (439); 1990 (542); 1991 (561); 1992 (629). Note that except for the general election year of 1980, murders from 1981 to 89 were fewer than 500.

Manley, due to ill health, demitted office as prime minister and PNP president in March 1992.

P J Patterson, Jamaica’s 6th prime minister, inherited a recovering economy. His mantra of “black man time now” grabbed the attention of the majority.

Patterson also inherited a calmer political climate, compared to his two predecessors. Structured political violence was receding appreciably, and the economy had regained some strength.

He, however, squandered the opportunity to make a century at the crease. By the end of 1993, murders were 654. These are facts: 1990 (542); 1991 (561); 1992 (629); 1993 (654); 1994 (690); 1995 (780); 1996 (925); 1997 (1,038); 1998 (953); 1999 (849); 2000 (887); 2001 (1,139); 2002 (1,045); 2003 (976); 2004 (1,471); 2005 (1,674); 2006 (1,340).

Social decadence, a first cousin of murders, increased massively while Patterson led Jamaica. Among other things, ‘gun tunes’, ‘badmanism’, and the disparagement of females in dancehall music took off like the Concorde. What was a minor theme became a major one. Violence at stage shows became a regular occurrence and instant gratification was placed on steroids.

By the time Patterson left office the economy was in free fall. Patterson’s time as prime minister was spectacularly deleterious to especially the black entrepreneurial class of this country. Companies which existed in Jamaica for upwards of 100 years folded and some 45,000 small and medium sized companies capsized. The economic recovery between 1980 and 1989 was wiped out by the scorched-earth economic policies of Finance and Planning Minister Dr Omar Davies. The economy was battered, bruised and emaciated.

The JLP, with Bruce Golding as prime minister, took office in September 2007. By 2010 the systematic shift in the trajectory of our economic fortunes began under the guidance of Audley Shaw as finance and the public service minister. Recall that in 2010 Golding and Shaw began decisive actions, including two domestic debt exchanges, to bring Jamaica’s debt trajectory on a more sustained path. That was the genesis of Jamaica’s economic recovery programme. I have been saying this here for several years because it is a fact. No amount of obfuscation by the PNP and its confederates can change this fact.

Here is another fact: The JLP Administration, according to figures from the Planning Institute of Jamaica, left the economy growing at 1.7 per cent in 2011.

Between 2012 and 2014 the economy came in and out of consciousness at 0.4 per cent. In 2015, the PNP, with the lowest oil prices in 20 years and favourable global growth conditions, could only achieve 0.8 per cent anaemic growth.

The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. Every time the PNP has formed the Administration since 1962, Jamaica has crawled like a snail through marmalade, especially economically and socially. Again, history has shown us that one of the best guides to what will happen in the future are the events of the past and the present.